I have just had a talk with a friend of mine who argues that it is correct to say
The missing is a child.
I tried to explain to him that the missing would refer to a group of people, but he cited examples of the + present participle which do not refer to a group of objects such as the washing in I have to do the washing.
Does this stem from that fact that in the first case we talk about people and in the second one we do not? Or perhaps I am wrong. If so, please correct me.
BTW, is it correct to say a poor meanig a poor person? [/i]
In English literature I often observed poor thing referring to a person(when you sympathize with a person ) But if you mean poor man in a sense of without money,beggar,it’s better to say a poor man but it’s just my opinion.
The missing is a child. This expression is not so common for me. I look to the missing as the verbal noun I’d better say :A(the if it’s a definite child) child is missed" or missed is a child.
The moderators will help you.I just expressed my ideas
You are right, Twin, ‘the missing’ refers to a group of people. Therefore, to talk about one individual, I would say: the missing person is a child.
‘The poor’ is a plural noun and means ‘poor people’ as a group. If you refer to one person only, you need to use the word as an adjective: a poor person/man/woman, etc.
‘The washing’ does refer to a group of objects – clothes which are to be (or have just been) washed: the washing dried quickly in the wind. In your sentence “I have to do the washing”, it refers to the act of washing clothes.
“The missing” = people
“The poor” = people
“The washing” = a single “collective” activity involving many clothes, many motions and a lot of work. :lol:
Amy
EDIT:
“a poor” = not possible as a stand-alone noun to refer to “a poor person”
We cannot say the missing is, but I guess we can say the washing is. My next question is: why? Is this because the former refers to people, whereas the latter does not? What do you think? What is the rule behind this?
I think you can also take the following things into consideration in attempting an explanation:
“The washing” is a gerund and was a verb before “deciding” to act like a noun. A gerund describes an activity (or possibly a state). It is grammatically singular. Gerunds can also sometimes be countable and made plural. The plural form would have the usual “s” at the end.
the washing
the cleaning
repeated and furious cleanings :lol:
his writing
his various writings
your cheating
the owing
“The missing” was a participial adjective describing people before “deciding” to act like a noun.
You can sometimes take a general adjective and turn it into a noun in order to categorize or group people who have a particular characteristic in common. This sort of noun is plural. (Nationalities would be an exception in this case.)
the poor
the rich
the missing
the starving
the over-worked
the under-paid